Soil samples were collected with distance at 5, 20, 40, 80, 160, and 320 m from the Shen-Ha (Shenyang-Harbin) Highway, Northeast China, to investigate the effect of heavy metals of highway origin on soil nematode guilds. The contents of soil Pb, Cu, Zn, and the nematode community structure were analyzed. The results showed that the contents of total and available Pb, Cu, Zn varied significantly...

Nonpoint source (NPS) watershed projects often fail to meet expectations for water quality improvement because of lag time, the time elapsed between adoption of management changes and the detection of measurable improvement in water quality in the target water body. Even when management changes are well-designed and fully implemented, water quality monitoring efforts may not show definitive res...

The Arctic environment is very vulnerable and sensitive to hydrocarbon pollutants. Soil bioremediation is attracting interest as a promising and cost-effective clean-up and soil decontamination technology in the Arctic regions. However, remoteness, lack of appropriate infrastructure, the harsh climatic conditions in the Arctic and some physical and chemical properties of Arctic soils may reduce...

Arsenic (As) is a pollutant of major concern throughout the world, and causes serious environmental problems in many areas including, for example, West Bengal, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Phytoremediation is potentially a cost-effective and environmentally benign method of extracting pollutants from soils for which there have been significant recent advances for As. In particular, the discovery of...

Mercury is one of the most toxic and hazardous pollutant which occurs in the environment in different chemical forms, of which methylmercury is the most dangerous. Recently it was recognised that long-term anthropogenic inputs of mercury into environment resulted in the global mercury pollution and it was concluded that action should be taken to quantify the pollution sources and reduce human-g...

This study examined the impact of industrial activities within the LSDPC Industrial estate in Odogunyan, on the quality of the sediments and soils within the area. Twenty samples comprising drainage sediments and soils were obtained from within the drains and surrounding areas of the industrial estate. These samples were dried and disaggregated and sieved to appropriate sizes for geochemical an...

Phytoremediation, the use of plants to remediate sites contaminated with organic and inorganic pollutants, and phytomining, the technology involved in extracting the pollutants removed for commercial purposes, are rapidly-growing industries with multi-million dollar markets. This solar-driven, green technology is often favored over more conventional methods of clean-up due to its low cost, low ...

Organohalides are recalcitrant pollutants that have been responsible for substantial contamination of soils and groundwater. Organohalide-respiring bacteria (ORB) provide a potential solution to remediate contaminated sites, through their ability to use organohalides as terminal electron acceptors to yield energy for growth (i.e., organohalide respiration). Ideally, this process results in non-...

It is widely recognised that riparian zones can greatly reduce the movement of pollutants from hillslopes into streams. While several indices of stream condition exist, the spatial distribution of the pollutant and runoff trapping functions of the riparian zone remains poorly understood. This paper describes three indices, which quantify the spatial distribution of riparian zones that function ...

In this paper a new procedure to assess value functions for environmental quality is presented. It has being particulary designed for eliciting expert-based value functions for pollutant substances. The main features of the model are the possibility to integrate direct and indirect assessment techniques, the possibility to make explicit assessment uncertainties and the ability to avoid forced q...